Table tennis and film have a surprisingly entangled history. Both depended on the invention of celluloid \u2013 which not only became the substrate of film, but is also used to make ping pong balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following a brief ping pong craze in 1902, the game largely disappeared and was widely assumed to have been a passing fad. More than 20 years later, however, the British socialite, communist spy and filmmaker Ivor Montagu went to great lengths to establish the game as a sport \u2013 a story I explore in my current book project on ping pong and the moving image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He founded the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and codified the rules of the game in both a book and a corresponding short film, Table Tennis Today (1929).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montagu presided over the ITTF for several decades. In 1925, the same year he founded the ITTF, Montagu also co-founded the London Film Society. The society helped introduce western audiences to experimental and art films that are now considered classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The game of table tennis has subsequently appeared at a number of moments when filmmakers and artists were experimenting with new technologies. An early example appears in one of the first works of \u201cvisual music\u201d: Rhythm in Light (1934) by Mary Ellen Bute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n